Born from pro-level paddling contests, Vail’s valleywide circus turns 13 this weekend with more music, larger participant events and an army of high-flying dogs, thanks to the growing role of second-year sponsor GoPro.

The camera-making juggernaut has sculpted an everyman’s outdoor festival from the former Teva Mountain Games, hoping to solidify itself as a lifestyle brand.

While GoPro’s high-definition, point-of-view cameras are nearly ubiquitous, the booming company has emerged as one of the biggest content providers in the action-sports game. Its YouTube channel has more than 1.9 million subscribers, and this year it debuted GoPro channels for Xbox and Virgin America flights. Its name has become a verb, with millions of camera-wielding directors who “GoPro” their own highlight reels.

The GoPro Mountain Games elevates that content-driven mission, flooding the Internet with endless hours of amateur and professional athlete footage. Most every image and video used to promote the biking, climbing, running, paddling, fishing, slacklining and dog-leaping festival comes from GoPro’s Hero cameras.

“The Mountain Games just embody a lot of what GoPro is about,” GoPro spokesman Rick Loughery said. “It’s got people being outside, being active, listening to music.”

GoPro, like the Mountain Games, started with humble roots. Birthed by a tinkerer who wanted a wrist-mounted camera to capture his pals surfing, GoPro sold $986 million worth of cameras last year, up from $150,000 in sales in 2004, its first year.

Those financial documents lifted the veil on a company everyone knew was blowing up. (We knew because Taiwan-based electronics maker Foxconn spent $200 million for 9 percent of the company in 2012, making the then 37-year-old founder Nick Woodman a billionaire.) Sales doubled every year for GoPro from inception through 2012, cooling only slightly in 2013, when its net income reached $60.5 million, up from $32.2 million the year before.

GoPro’s content-driven focus is revealed in its spending on sales and marketing. In 2011, it spent $64.4 million, enlisting top-name athletes including Olympians Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn to promote the brand. Last year GoPro spent $157.8 million, fueling athletes who won six medals in the Sochi Winter Games.

GoPro had only a few months to prepare for its 2013 title-sponsor debut of the Mountain Games, which are owned by the Vail Valley Foundation. At the start of the weekend, most people were still calling it the Teva Mountain Games, as it had been known for 11 years. By the end of the weekend, the Teva name was slipping.

“All the feedback we got last year,” he said, “was that people were stoked we were part of the games.”

They should be. The four-day festival last year sparked the Vail Valley’s summer season by drawing more than 53,000 spectators, a 22 percent increase over 2012. Those spectators booked nearly 5,400 room nights, stirring $4.7 million in spending, according to the town.

With GoPro emerging as a major force in action sports, Vail is hoping this year’s event brings an even bigger bounce.

“It’s an exciting time to be connected to the brand. They are successful because they are always innovating, and that translates to new and better experiences for our athletes and spectators,” said Vail Valley Foundation spokeswoman Kate Peters.

This year, GoPro is expanding events and the footprint of the Mountain Games. The wildly popular mud run has been handed off to Badass Dash, whose eight-event obstacle course and adventure race series in the U.S. and Canada benefits Autism Speaks. This year’s muddy obstacle race — which includes kids’ and dog-friendly divisions — is at Vail’s Lionshead Village. (GoPro hopes to spark interest in its new “Fetch” camera mounts for canines with five dog events during the games. )

The Mountain Games climbing wall — host to World Cup competition — moves into the heart of Vail Village.

An increase in the number of free concerts bolsters GoPro’s aggressive move into the music world, with a host of new musician-friendly mounts, cameras and software. This weekend’s three free concerts feature big-name acts Xavier Rudd and Cold War Kids and, for the first-time, opening acts each night in Vail Village.

“Playing the GoPro games is certainly exposing us to a much wider audience — lots of environmentally conscious folks that might get a chance to see us in another setting like a bar or music festival,” said Rodney Coquia, guitarist for the Vail-based Bonfire Dub, which opens for Rudd on Thursday night.

Jason Blevins covers tourism, mountain business, skiing and outdoor adventure sports for both the business and sports sections at The Denver Post, which he joined in 1997. He skis, pedals, paddles and occasionally boogies in the hills and is just as inspired by the lively entrepreneurial spirit that permeates Colorado's high country communities as he is by the views.

More in Tourism

Developers are proposing two new buildings along Larimer between 14th and 15th streets that would utilize space on the block’s existing alleyways, behind the many historic buildings lining Larimer, adding density and bringing new uses to the commercial district that dates back to the 1860s.

A year of upheaval at the U.S. Interior Department has seen dozens of senior staff members reassigned and key leadership positions left unfilled, rules considered burdensome to industry shelved, and a sweeping reorganization proposed for its 70,000 employees.

An effort to bring a 150,000-square-foot entertainment and dining complex to Glendale — a plan that has been repeatedly sidetracked in recent years — this month took its most significant step forward yet when city leaders approved a development agreement with a Texas company.